Disney bans smoking in films

Marvel, LucasFilm and Pixar films will no longer be allowed to depict smoking

Disney has announced that it is banning smoking in all of its PG 13-rated future productions, including Marvel, LucasFilm and Pixar films.

“We are extending our policy to prohibit smoking in movies across the board,” said Disney CEO Bob Iger, during a meeting with shareholders last week. He then clarified that the ban would not apply to instances in which smoking was part of the cultural or historical background of a real-life figure.

“For instance, we’ve been doing a movie on Abraham Lincoln, he was a smoker, and we would consider that acceptable,” Iger said. “But in terms of any new characters that are created for any of those films, under any of those labels, we will absolutely prohibit smoking in any of those films.”

Asked by shareholder Stanton Glantz, a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, whether Disney would be prepared to support a move to give an "R" rating (roughly equivalent to a UK 18 certificate) to all films depicting smoking, Iger said: "I think it would be a little bit presumptuous of me to commit to doing that today without getting a little bit more of a flavor or perspective on the dynamic that exists at the MPAA on the subject.

"I’m just not well versed in that. I don’t know what positions the other studios have even taken about this."

However, he later agreed that the depiction of smoking in films accessible to minors was "a serious issue", and stated that he would speak to the MPPA (Motion Picture Association of America) board about it.

Famous Disney characters who have been depicted smoking in the past include the caterpillar in 1951's Alice in Wonderland, who memorably puffs from a hookah, and Cruella de Vil, the elegantly evil, fur-obsessed villain of 1961's 101 Dalmations.

(The caterpillar in Disney's Alice in Wonderland. GIF via Giphy.com)

After the news was announced, Vogue Magazine fondly recalled the scene from the 1993 movie Mrs Doubtfire, in which the late (and much-lamented) Robin Williams voices his objection to smoking in children's films.

Alongside its plans to ban smoking, Disney has also recently been asked to bring its films into line with modern thinking in another way.

The animal rights advocacy group PETA have called upon Tim Burton, director of Disney's forthcoming live-action Dumbo remake, to ensure that the film's titular big-eared elephant will be able to retire to an animal sanctuary at the end of the movie, instead of living out his days in a circus.

"We're hopeful that in your adaptation of Dumbo, the young elephant and his mother can have a truly happy ending by living out their lives at a sanctuary instead of continuing to be imprisoned and abused in the entertainment industry," said PETA vice president Lisa Lange, in an open letter to the director.

While the use of live animals in circuses remains legal in the US, one of the biggest circuses, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, announced last year that it was planning to phase out the use of elephants in its acts by 2018.

In the UK, a law to ban the use of wild animals in circuses, a practice condemned by organisations such as the RSCPA, was first proposed in 2012, but has been repeatedly blocked by three Conservative MPs, Andrew Rosindell, Christopher Chope and Philip Davies.